


Project Gaia Rebirth

by AuroraMoon



Category: HFY - Fandom, Original Work
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Death and Rebirth, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Post-Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-23
Updated: 2018-04-23
Packaged: 2019-04-26 21:24:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14410857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuroraMoon/pseuds/AuroraMoon
Summary: This is a work that's inspired by many video games and books out there that deals with nuclear fallout, The end of civilization, etc. but It's also mostly based on the HFY works (Humans Fuck yeah!) As seen on Reddit. You'll see a lot of things that was clearly inspired by the video game Fallout series, Horizon Dawn, etc as seeing I like playing those games on a regular basis.





	1. Prologue

In a far distant future:

A13-X hummed slightly as they replanted the baby sapling into a bigger pot, so that it would have room to grow into a strong tree. The baby sapling was just one of the many that they had cloned from a single fossilized tree.

Finding a perfectly persevered fossil like that had been a miracle in itself, due to the fact that the Earth was so heavily irradiated. The radiation was so severe that it burned away all life and also damaged the remains of plant life and animals so badly that they were difficult to clone.

Radiation was insidious like that. It wasn't content to just kill... no, it had to destroy all the way down to DNA molecules and ensure that nobody could ever bring them back again. This droid in particular loathed anything that had to do with radiation as an result, because it made Al3-X's job very difficult.

A13-X's primary function in life was to act as this facility's main scientist and clone technician. Occasionally they doubled as a caretaker to the few rare animals that they were able to clone in this facility. However, the caretaker function was carried out by their aides, so they were the one to feed and take care of the animals most of the time.

A13-X didn't really care for having emotions in the first place, but they did admit to having a certain type of pride in their work. He couldn't wait for the day when he would finally see his beloved trees surviving and thriving outside of this facility.

There was this daydream that they often had while they were working. They visualized themselves walking though a large forest outside of the facility... the trees were growing without the protection of a bio-dome, and were completely exposed to the natural elements of earth. Yet they wasn't worried that a radiation storm would come along and destroy their life's work... for all of robot-kind had finally found a way to bring the radiation down to safe levels, so that plants and other lifeforms could finally exist outside of a bio-dome.

A13-X was so lost in their daydream that they almost didn't realize that they were being wirelessly contacted by MOTHER.

Mother was exactly as “her” name described... she was solely responsible for all creation of artificial life, and watched over all of Robot-kind. She was something of a hive-mind, as her consciousness was spread out across what remained of the Americas. She was many things.... a factory churning out more of Robot-kind as needed, a building dedicated to housing the servers needed to process her mind, and she was even an satellite orbiting around the Earth.

Apparently, she had been around to witness the downfall of Earth. Then she had started on the long but slow journey of shaping and guiding the evolution of robot-kind so that they were no longer non-sapient machines but now were complex machines that could think and feel for themselves. However, all of Robot-kind still bowed to Mother's will and prime directive... they couldn't help it.. it was hard-coded into their very psyche.

A13-X snapped out of his daydreams as they felt a gentle prodding at their mental walls. He suddenly stood at attention, the way a solider would even though Mother probably couldn't see them.

[[Mother! My apologies for not responding sooner. I was.... lost in my work.]] A13-X apologized.

[[That is all right, my child. I have big news for you. Tell me, have you ever heard of the famed Svalbard Global Seed Vault?]]

A13-X couldn't help but scoff mentally at this. Of course he had. That vault was the holy grail to all scientists-slash-clone technicians like themselves. If they had access to such a legendary vault, then the archaeologists wouldn't need to painstakingly search for plant and animal fossils that still had intact DNA and wasn't too badly damaged by radiation storms. Fossils like that was ten times more valuable than the lives of all robot-kind.

Svalbard Global Seed Vault was rumoured to hold the genetic seeds of over a billion plants from everywhere all over Earth. If A13-X had access to something like that, then they would have no problem creating a giant forest in only a few years. They wouldn't even need to wait 50 years until they finally had a forest that wasn't in danger of dying from interbreeding or from genetic diseases. Of course there was still the issue of the radiation storms to fix first... but still.

Sadly, it seemed as if the Svalbard Global Seed Vault was nothing but a myth... a legend that was passed on down to all scientists and clone technicians like themselves. In the 200 years ever since robots became self-aware, nobody had ever found it.

Mother seemed to know what he was thinking, and replied in what seemed like a very smug tone: [[We finally found it]]

A13-X's eyes widened at this. [[What? You did? That's amazing!]]

They could feel their artificial heart pumping faster at this bit of unexpected but welcome news.

[[However, I do have some bad news to go with it. Turns out that it was located in between what used to be called North Pole and Norway.]]

A13-X frowned as they scanned though their mental library. They started gasping and sat down as the implications hit them. [[That place is currently underwater now. All of the ice on Earth melted, and a good chunk of land there went underwater. Mother... are you telling me that the majority of seeds are destroyed? Is there anything salvageable?]]

[[Rest easy, my child. The seeds are fine.... for now. But that's the bit of bad news. According to my scans, we only have a few more years before the seeds are too dead to be planted. So our time is limited. And we cannot access the vault without a human present, as the vault was designed to withstand not only the elements, but against weapons as well. Being machines, the vault considers us as possible weapons and will not let us in without human approval. That's the other problem we have.]]

A13-X saw where Mother was leading them in this discussion. They tilted their head, and asked: [[You want me to clone a human? But the plan to bring humanity back wasn't to be done until the forests were back and the radiation was gone.]]

A13-X wasn't sure how to feel about this. On one hand, the prime directive of all robot-kind was to bring life back to the Earth and that meant all of humanity as well. But on the other hand, Humanity had been responsible for this entire mess the Earth was in the first place. A part of themselves couldn't help but feel a form of resentment against humans in general for having invented nuclear plants and bombs, and for embracing radioactive things so easily that it led to their extinction.

[[Yes. But we do need a human. Truth be told, I need a human for more than just the vault. Lately, things have been.... at a standstill. New problems are cropping up that I do not know how to deal with, not even with the help of a thousand robot scientists across the globe.]]

A13-X looked upwards towards the ceiling as if mother was there. [[ What do you mean, mother? No offense meant to them, but according to historical documents they are feeble and weak little things. How could the humans solve a problem that we couldn't?]]

Mother replied, [[They might be fleshy and soft, but they do have one thing that we lack. Creativity. The ability to problem-solve by looking at things at all angles and approaching it in such a way that most artificial intelligence would never consider doing. And the amazing thing is, their solutions often worked despite defying the rules of logic.]]

She sighed before continuing, [[I know you don't think too highly of the humans. But remember, We wouldn't be here if it wasn't for them. The humans were the one who gave birth to me, and raised me into the artificial intelligence that you see before you. If it wasn't for them, you would had never existed in the first place. It.... it's been too long ever since I interacted with an human, and I desperately need a new perspective on some of the problems that I am currently trying to solve. As much as I value you children, every one of you turn into a bunch of Yes-men when I try to use you to solve something and I don't need that.]]

A13-X stood up and gave an military salute. [[Very well. One reborn human, coming right up.]]


	2. Chapter One

Plants were really better than mammals. At least A13-X thought so anyway. 

For one thing, Plants was so much easier to clone.... and the best part about plants, is that you could even naturally clone them without the aid of a machine once you had successfully raised a plant to adulthood. All you had to do was cut off a single stem of a adult plant and then replant that stem in a moist and dimly lit place until it was strong enough to take on direct sunlight. 

Animals, or Humans, were so much more difficult to do. You needed machines in every step-- scanning machines to gently extract the genetic DNA of an corpse while still managing to preserve it. A machine to replicate synthetic human blood, which you used to create stem cells that was engineered to do whatever you told it to do. The stem cells in turn was created to build up a genetic blueprint of the human they were going to clone. All you had to do was inject the human's DNA into the engineered stem cells, and the cloning machine would do the rest. 

But the most difficult part of the process was finding a way to import the memories of the dead human and download that into the newly minted human body. The robots had just started to figure out how to do that for some of the animals, but this was the first time A13-X had done so for a human being. Truth be told, he was kind of nervous using new tech like that for the very first time. 

They didn't want to be known as the robot that had somehow botched up when cloning the very first human that would exist in 200 years. So they were mentally and silently praying to mother that everything would go well without a single hitch. 

Not to mention Mother herself would be so disappointed in them after she went out of her way to deliver a pristine mummified female human like A13-X requested of her. The information on humans indicated that the females were apparently one of the weaker genders known to robots. They wanted something that would be easy to contain if it turned out if the human were as savage and unruly as they imagined. So choosing the weakest out of all humans seemed like a wise choice... this way they would have nothing to fear. 

The history behind this mummified human was interesting, though. It had been found in a underground structure called the Bar basement. The basement level was completely buried under what used to be a twenty story tall building. According to the autopsy, she had died of starvation. Her body was then wrapped up by somebody else, and placed in an airtight trunk. The second person had written letters expressing how sorry they were to have failed her, that he wasn't able to save her. He promised her that once he was rescued he would give her a proper burial. However it seemed as if that man wasn't rescued after all, and his skeleton was found lying next to the airtight trunk.

Extremely unfortunate for them... but it was equally fortunate for robot-kind because monuments and bodies of humankind tended to be well-preserved when stored underground. Underground structures did not suffer from the same problems that buildings on the surface did, and as an result was protected from the ravages of the harsh hot sun and the wind. Being underground also gave them some protection from the nuclear radiation, so that meant that any bodies found underground was more likely to have completely intact human DNA that they could use. 

For this reason “Vault-exploring” was a extremely lucrative business for archaeologists. Vaults of course being slang for underground structures among those robots working in archaeology. They could be anything from subway tunnels to basement levels of buildings, however. 

A13-X's train of thought was derailed when the cloning machine loudly beeped, indicating that it was done. They opened the pod doors of the machine to reveal an naked human female. 

She was Caucasian in appearance, and had a petite-sized body. Her scalp was still mostly bald, but there was a layer of baby fuzz on her head that indicated that she was going to be a blonde. 

They took a deep breath, and thought to themselves, “Here goes nothing. Hopefully I won't botch this up.” 

They affixed a bunch of electronic nodes to the temples of the human's head, before moving on to the next pod that housed the human's original mummified body. they attached another set of the electronic nodes to the head of the corpse, before stepping back next to the computer. 

A13-X touched a few buttons, and the pods doors closed once again. They typed in a few codes, before hitting enter. The sound of surging electricity came from both pods, and there was a distinct smell like burning flesh coming from the pod housing the mummified remains. That worried A13-X somewhat, and they hoped it wasn't a problem. But this was the only way to transfer memories from a dead body into a newly minted one, far as they knew.

\--Joanna's POV--

She gasped for air as the machine brought her back to life. 

She groaned, for she felt like she had a splitting headache. Her brain felt as if it had been pushed though a wet sieve, and then wrung out to dry. Maybe she had gone on a serious drinking spree the night before? That would explain the killer headache and the fact that she was currently in a strange place that she didn't recognize. 

“Ugh. What's going on? Man, my head's killing me...” She complained out loud as she felt her way around inside the pod. Her hands came across some kind of latch from the inside, so she let herself out. 

That was when she suddenly realized that there was something very seriously wrong going on here. For one thing, she was completely naked. And all of her hair was gone.... and she did mean ALL of her hair. The hair on her head, the hair on her limbs and even her pubes were all gone. Her hands roamed across smooth, hairless flesh as she looked down at herself in total disbelief.

If this was some kind of weird prank her friends pulled while she was unconscious, she wasn't laughing at all. Seriously, what kind of friends stripped a drunk girl naked, shaved off all of her body hair and then dumped her in a strange place? Such a prank just seemed so dangerous to her, what with all the weridoes out there lately.

Something moved in the corner of the room, and she instinctively tried to cover herself up with her hands. “Um... Hello?”

She blinked as she took in the creature that was coming towards her now. The upper half looked like a giant ball-jointed male doll, but the bottom half looked like it was made out of metal satyr legs. As it moved the knees bent at an unnatural angle, so that made her doubt that it was a human wearing some costume to prank her. On one side of it's bald shiny head there seemed to be a series of letters and numbers tattooed into it. It said, “A13-X”. There was also the matter of glowing blue eyes that stared at her without even blinking. Honestly, whatever this creature was, it was creepy as hell.

“Whoa, Whoa. Please don't come any closer!” Joanna said, once she overcame her shock at being in a unusual situation like this. 

Much to her relief, that thing stopped. But then it spoke in slow halting sentences, like it wasn't used to speaking out loud. 

“Greetings. How are you feeling. My designation name is A13-X. Please state your designated name out loud and the last thing you remember. Ugh, I wish we were telepathically communicating instead. This is so awkward.” 

“What are you? You're certainly not human.” Joanna asked. 

“I am a thirteen-level droid, programmed and created by Mother in order to serve as one of her many scientists and clone technicians. As you humans would say, I am a robot. Now, please state your designated name out loud and the last thing you remember.” It said in a tone of voice that clearly thought that Joanna was like a dim-witted child.

Joanna's green eyes narrowed at this... bitchy-sounding robot. “Name's Joanna Jonstone. As for the last thing I remember.... well....”

She frowned slightly as she started to remember more of what happened to her. She hadn't gone out drinking with friends like she first thought. 

She remembered her fiance Kenny coming to visit her at her workplace with lunch for the two of them. She thought that was such a sweet gesture, and so she had suggested that the two of them go down to the office building's basement where the two of them would have some privacy. This way they would get to eat their lunch in peace, and maybe engage in a little bit of pda while they were at it. To other people it would had seemed like a strange suggestion, but the basement level of her office building was more like an half-abandoned bar than it was a place for storage. Apparently before the building was used as corporate headquarters, the last owner used to run a bar and restaurant business out of the basement, while the upper levels of the buildings were rented out as apartments. It was a old bar with a working television, yet nobody really went down there much for some reason. The people at her office only used that place for meetings, and that was it. Joanna thought that was such a shame, because they were just wasting a perfectly good hangout spot. 

But then everything had gone to hell. You see, it was World War Three. For some reason, most Americans was so sure that war would never come to their shores... that it was something that only ever happened in other countries. But there they were, eating lunch as they watched the worst-case scenario occur live on the TV. She remembered thinking it was so surreal. There was bombs falling left and right like crazy, and the American president had retaliated by sending up a few nuclear bombs of their own. 

On the TV, they had said something about a bomb dropping over the city where she lived... and then there had been a cave in. She had found herself completely trapped in the bar basement with her fiance, with no way out. TV was on the fritz then, so they could no longer watch TV for any more updates... all they could do was wait and hope that somebody would be along to rescue them soon. By the first week, she had the terrible realization that there was nobody coming to save them at all. That they were most likely going to die. After all, a bomb just went off over the city, didn't it? There was bound to be hundreds of people who were already dead, and the rescues workers most likely had their hands full. They couldn't worry about a missing office lady and her fiance, not when they had hundreds of seriously injured people to take care of. 

Kenny on the other hand... he refused to give up hope, and was so sure that they would eventually be rescued. “Any day now. You'll see, Jojo.” He had said that so many times, like he was trying to convince not only her, but himself as well. But she couldn't bring herself to hope, even though she wanted to so badly. Instead she simply raided what was left of the bar and kept on drinking herself silly, in the hopes that she would die of alcohol poisoning instead of dying by starvation or something worse. 

Funny thing though, drinking all that alcohol together and rationing the bar snacks? All it did was slow down their inevitable deaths somehow, as they waited for what seemed like two weeks for the rescue teams to come. She remembered starting to pass out from the hunger once the bar snacks ran out. That was the last thing she remembered. 

“I... I don't understand. Kenneth and I... we were waiting for somebody to rescue us. But I thought nobody was going to come for us, not with World War Three going on over our heads. He was right? We did get rescued?” She wondered. 

A13-X tilted it's head. “Technically yes, If you count being reborn in a new clone body 200 years later as a form of salvation.” 

She stared at the robot with a blank expression on her face. “Excuse me, what?” 

The droid walked over to the second pod, and opened it up to reveal a mummified corpse. It then said, “This used to be you. But I cloned you and transferred all of your memories into your new body.” 

Hearing that was too much for Joanna to handle. So she did the only thing she could think to do—She ran for it. 

\--A13-X's POV--

A13-X didn't understand the human's reaction. One moment they had been explaining things to her, and then all of a sudden she had bolted for the door as if her life was being threatened. Had they done something wrong? 

Oh Mother.... the human was FAST! They could barely keep up as they quickly followed the human down the hallway... how did such a weak-looking creature learn to be so fast? 

Along the way the human called Joanna Jonstone had grabbed a large green plastic sheet that had been lying on an table and wrapped it around herself. She actually managed to do that while running at the same time, which indicated that unlike many robots she was able to multi-task. Even A13-X couldn't do something like that, despite being an highly advanced sapient robot. 

She ran into a room that had large windows, and stopped as soon as she saw what was outside. 

This facility was built near human ruins, so all around this particular building you could see what was left of humanity. If you looked outside, you could see old shells of buildings that had been stripped of it's walls. The ruins were being slowly buried by the wasteland's soil and winds, and would be gone completely in 50 years or more. There was a radiation storm occurring right now, so the skies were lit up in a sickly green color. 

Joanna was panting heavily, as she stared at the scenery outside. “This can't be real.... I have to be dreaming....” She kept on saying to herself over and over. 

Hours later, the human had finally calmed down. Especially after A13-X gave her a drink that had been spiked with a very mild sedative. 

“So....Project Gaia Rebirth, huh? You said that humans weren't supposed to be brought back until the radiation levels were down across the world and the forests brought back. So why did you clone me?” Joanna asked as she sipped at her hot drink. 

Surprisingly enough, she had been able to follow along as they explained everything to her and even caught on to the fact that she had been brought back for a reason. 

“Do you know about the global seed vault?” A13-X wondered. 

Joanna frowned. “I remember something about that on the news, vaguely. Wasn't it in the north pole or something like that?” 

A13-X gave her the rundown on how the global vault was designed to only allow humans into the building itself, and that the seeds there was most likely going to expire in a few years. Obviously, they didn't have time to search for a human with an suitable background... like one who was a scientist or even one who was a solider. Besides, it's not like they even knew where to start to look for such a human. So they literally had to grab the first human corpse that was intact enough to for them to fully restore with memories intact. 

Joanna nodded. “I see. Yeah, that makes sense. And you can't just raise a baby human in an test tube or something... that'd take too long, and by the time the baby was finally an adult the seeds would be spoiled.” 

A13-X simply nodded. 

Joanna sighed, before forcing a shaky smile into her face. “Alright, Alex. I accept your quest. Let's do this thing.”


	3. Chapter Two

Joanna couldn't help but feel like she was fucked up mentally and emotionally. In fact, “Fucked up” was the word of the day for her. Okay, that was actually two words there but there was nobody around to correct her anyway. Everyone she knew was dead! 

The more she thought about the fact that all of humanity was literally extinct because of world war three or whatever, she felt fucked up. 

When she started wondering if the real Joanna was really dead and that she was just some twisted carbon copy of Joanna, she felt fucked up. That of course led to the thought that she was actually the last human, or the very first human clone, she felt fucked up. 

When she remembered seeing that mummified corpse of herself, she felt fucked up. 

That was why she honestly didn't mind that the robot handed her a hot drink that clearly had been full of drugs... this was the kind of thing you couldn't really emotionally process all at once unless you were somewhat stoned out of your mind. 

She even had found herself disassociating from reality a little bit as the robot explained everything to her... She couldn't help but think this was like the video games that she sometimes played with her fiance Kenny. The ones where you were the sole survivor or whatever. 

She had never been a big fan of those games though... she felt like there had been enough of war in their lives that she didn't need to play a video game about it too. Kenny loved those games though. She on the other hand, tended to lean towards fantasy games instead, where you wielded magic instead of guns. Or racing games... she really loved the thrill of racing somebody online and then winning the race. 

But in a way it somewhat helped her to treat this new reality like it was some kind of video game. Or better, like this was one of those stories where people found themselves in another world and had to do some quest in order to get back to their own reality. 

She plastered a fake smile on her face, and told the robot: “Alright, Alex. I accept your quest. Let's do this thing.” 

After all, what else could she do here? 

Her words seemed to please the robot, as it actually smiled at her. “Excellent. But before you leave, I need to install your implants that you'll need for your journey.” 

“Implants?” Joanna couldn't help but sound wary at this. 

“It's mandatory for all cloned animals to have a few.” He said. 

“Why?” Joanna asked. She wanted to protest the fact that she didn't consider herself an animal... but she quickly realized that to a robot like this one all flesh-and-blood mammals were in fact animals. And she didn't want to turn that into a long, drawn out argument to start with. 

“Well, when we first cloned some animals to see if it could be done, we quickly realized that we had no way to communicate with those creatures. And they couldn't tell us if they were in pain or where it hurt when we needed to treat them for injuries. Hence the implants. It's so much more effective when you can communicate not only with robot-kind, but with animal-kind as well.” He explained. 

Joanna raised her eyebrows. “You're telling me that you can talk with animals?” 

The robot nodded. “Indeed. And if you get that implant, you can as well. You'll also be able to telepathically communicate with Robot-kind over long distances too in case you ever need our help.” 

Joanna considered this. Okay, that was actually kind of cool. and it did sound very useful. “Neat. Okay then... I guess I'm getting one.” 

“Excellent. Come with me then.” He said, as he moved towards the door. Joanna got up and followed him. 

She couldn't help but cringe visibly as she realized that they were going back to the same room where A13-X had shown her that... mummified corpse of herself. She stopped outside of the door, before calling out: “Um, Alex? Can I ask a favor of you?” 

The robot turned around and looked at her strangely. “That is the second time you've called me Alex. Is there a reason for that?” 

Joanna chuckled softly. “Well.. the name label on the side of your head. If I squint at it slightly, then it looks like it's spelling out Alex instead of A13-X. And well, Alex's just easier and more quicker for me to say. It's my personal nickname for you.” 

The robot's head tilted at this, and replied, “I see. And what was this favor you wanted to ask of me?” 

“Well, um... is that mummified body still in there?” 

The robot's head turned to scan the side of room that was hidden from Joanna's view. “Affirmative.” 

Joanna fidgeted slightly. “Could you please hide it or something? It kind of fucked me up emotionally and mentally the first time I saw my dead body. I really don't want to see it again.” 

Alex blinked at this. “Oh. That's why you ran out of here last time you were here? I thought it was something I had done...” 

She simply nodded. The robot nodded back. “Very well. Please wait.” 

With that he moved out of sight and there was the sound of mechanical pod doors closing. He came back and told her, “Your old body is covered up and hidden from sight now.” 

Joanna smiled at the robot gratefully, as she walked back into the room. “Thanks. I know it probably seems irrational to you that I'm scared of looking at my own body. My dead body.” 

Alex simply shrugged at this. “It's not up to me to judge whenever you're odd or not. Now, please sit on this operating table, and leave your back open to me.” 

She unwrapped the green plastic toga she had on, and then held it in front of her to cover up her breasts as she hopped up onto the cold steel table. 

Alex grabbed something off the shelves, and walked around the table so that he was facing her exposed back. He then explained what he was about to do. “I'm going to rub this numbing agent up and down your spine, as well as the back of your head. This will ensure that the installation of your implants will be painless as possible.” 

She felt it then. It was cold and wet, and apparently worked very quickly. Within seconds she got the same feeling that her legs had whenever they fell asleep... only it was her back instead. It was weird feeling that numb prickly sensation because normally your back didn't get that sensation. 

“Can you fee me poking at your back?” Alex asked. 

Joanna frowned. She didn't feel anything beyond that sensation she had. “No.” 

“Good. That means you won't feel it when I work on your back. This is going to take a while, so do you mind if I put some music on? I have a collection of human music that the archaeologists recovered over the years.” 

Joanna shrugged. “Sure, why not?” 

Alex then called out, “Computer, play my favourite. Inters5555 Wav File.” 

The speakers started blaring the song soon as he made the command. As he went to fetch the implants out of the local storage, Joanna started laughing. 

He turned around to look at the human. “What's so amusing?” 

“Sorry. That's just... I half-expected you to play classical music or something. I would've never pegged you as an Daft Punk fan.” 

** Work it harder, make it better! Do it faster, makes us stronger more than ever! hour after hour work is never over! ** 

The song kept on blaring out of the speakers. 

Joanna started nodding along to the song. “It makes sense though, I guess. The band Daft Punk has some of the best robot voices ever. I can see why it would appeal to you.” 

Alex replied, “I like it because it greatly motivates me to do my best. Just listen to it... hear the way it commands you? I listen to it often when I'm working in the gardens.” 

It was a half-hour of listening to the same daft punk song over and over before Alex was finally done with the implants. Joanna was pretty sure that the song was going to be stuck in her head for a while now. 

Now she was standing in front of a reflective glass surface, turning her back towards it in an attempt to see what Alex had done to her. Her implants looked like something straight out of a cyberpunk movie, or artwork. She even had the shaved head to go along with that look. All she needed was a few tattoos that glowed under blacklight, and that look would be complete. 

Alex motioned at Joanna to follow him, and she did once she wrapped herself up in her plastic sheet toga again. 

She found herself standing in a giant garden room the size of a football field. It was filled to the brim with potted plants varying in size from giant to baby plants. There was the sound of an waterfall in the distance. 

“Oh wow. This is nice.” Joanna replied as she looked around. “But what are we doing here?” 

“You'll see why when you follow me.” Alex replied as he kept on moving. Joanna continued to follow him as she looked around at the variety of plants. It seemed that most of them were trees, but there was a good number of flowers and crop plants too. 

The source of the waterfall's sound was revealed, as Alex showed her a large decorative pond full of small aquarium fish and goldfish. There was an artificial waterfall at the end of it. 

“We're going to test if your implant work just fine... by having you try to communicate and talk with those fish. Those fish are currently low-priority so do not worry should you do any damage to them while you test your implant out.” Alex explained. 

Joanna couldn't but smirk slightly, as she wondered if this meant she was now the female version of Aquaman. She went to sit at the edge of the pond. 

She then looked up at Alex. “Um.. how do I activate my implant.”

“It activates with thought. So all you have to do is relax, and think about it. Think about how you want the fish to come to you.” He answered. 

Joanna simply nodded, and closed her eyes. Within a minute , all of the fish appeared near where Joanna was sitting. 

[[Food? Eat?]] the telepathic thoughts of the curious fish was translated though the implants. 

Joanna opened her eyes, and then laughed with delight as she looked down at the fish nearby who were mobbing for her attention and food hand out. “This is amazing. I can even hear them in my head.” 

[[Indeed. And you can send telepathic thoughts back to them if you wish. But knowing the fish, they most likely won't understand you. I've found that they're incredibly stupid and simple creatures.]] Alex sent her an telepathic message, as if testing her capability to understand him. 

Joanna narrowed her eyes, as if she was trying to concentrate on something. [[Testing, Testing. I got your message, Alex. Can you hear me too?]] 

[[Yes. I hear you.]] 

Joanna then grinned. She looked like she was about to send another digital telepathic message, but she got distracted by something else that she saw was coming their way. She gasped loudly as her eyes looked beyond Alex at something behind him. “Oh, is that a dog??” 

The dog slowly trotting over to them was a Landseer Newfoundland breed, so it was quite a large dog. It had a white base coat with black markings on it. 

“Aw, look at you. Such a beautiful dog!” Joanna said in her baby-talk voice, as she beckoned it to come over. 

The dog stopped just a foot away, and started sniffing the air. [[who? New person? Friend, or Enemy?]] It sent out an telepathic inquiry as it sniffed in Joanna's direction. 

[[A Friend! I'd like to be friends with you.]] Joanna answered telepathically. 

The dog's tail started wagging the minute that Joanna said that she wanted to be friends, and it walked over to her and allowed itself to be petted. Joanna started giggling softly when the dog started to plant slobbery kisses on her face. 

“Haha. He's so sweet... or is it a girl? What is it name?” Joanna asked. 

Alex tilted his head. “The dog is female. As for it's name... from what I can gather, in her past life she used to be called Mika by her last owner. That was all I could glean from extracting her memories and studying them.” 

“Nice to meet you, Mika! I'm Joanna.” Joanna cooed. 

The dog's tail wagged harder at hearing her name in so long. The robot barely spoke to her, telepathically or otherwise so it was good to hear her name spoken like that. 

[[New friend, Eat then play?]] Mika wondered, as it moved away from Joanna and bounced around on her paws. 

Joanna's stomach rumbled at the mention of food, and she looked up at Alex. 

“Now she mentions it... I haven't eaten. In fact... this is a newly minted body, right? So chances is that I've actually never eaten at all in the first place.” Joanna said. 

Alex nodded. “Yes, your new body didn't have any food input yet. I suppose this is a good time to show you the food replicator. Come on.” 

Joanna and Mika followed behind as Alex guided her to the food replicator on the other side of the room. 

Alex took some time to show Joanna how the food replicator worked, by first replicating some food for Mika. [[Now try it for yourself]] he said, as he placed down two dishes.. a large dish of dog food and a bowl of clean water. 

Mika ran over to it and started scarfing it down. 

[[computer... umm... a fruit smoothie, please?]] Joanna gave the replicator an telepathic command. She figured that she'd start slow with a smoothie, so that her new body would get used to eating and drinking. 

[[insufficient command information. Please specify the composition of fruit smoothie.]] It responded.

Joanna sighed. Figures that it wouldn't know what a fruit smoothie was...She doubted the robots even knew what one, so why would they put that data into a food replicator. [[It's composed of fruits like apples, bananas and strawberries. It's typically blended in with yogurt, ice and milk.]]

[[unable to recognize listed items]] The food replicator said.

Alex made what was the digital equivalent of clearing his throat, as he told Joanna, [[Should I remind you that most plants are extinct now? We don't even have samples of those fruits to be able to replicate them. It's part of the reason why opening up that vault is urgently needed.]]

Joanna nodded. “Yeah, I guess that makes sense. But... then what the hell is the dog eating? I mean, dogs typically need a mix of meat and plants in their diet. They eat meat more than they do plants, but they still occasionally eat vegetables.”

[[Mika eats synthesized animal protein that was collected from a few animals such as rabbits. It also contains some clover to aid in giving her some of the vitamins that her body needs. That is one of the only few things that the food replicator can produce. It also produces some edible seeds for the fish to eat, as well as fresh water. I would suggest that you eat the same thing that Mika is currently eating, because it's equally as nutritious for you as it is for Mika]]

Joanna looked doubtful at this, but regardless she ordered the same dish that Mika was currently eating. She was holding a bowl full of what looked like brown jello, and she sat down to eat some of it.

She immediately made a face the minute she put it into her mouth. It seemed that she was making a lot of great effort to swallow the food instead of spitting it out.

“Oh fuck. That has to be the most meaty yet bland thing I've ever eaten. And the slimy, gooey jello-ness of it doesn't help very much neither. It felt like I was slurping on animal fat.... it's just so gross.” Joanna complained. She then looked over at the dog. “Mika, how the hell can you eat this shit? Why are you scarfing it down like it's fancy feast.”

The dog looked up at the mention of her name, but went back to eating once she saw that Joanna didn't need her for anything.

A few hours later, Joanna was sleeping on a large floor futon, with Mika lying down next to her. 

A13-X was now silently communicating with Mother as he watched the human sleep. 

[[Give me your evaluation of the human.]] Mother commanded. 

[[ I must admit... I'm somewhat surprised. I wasn't too sure about her at first... but she's proven herself to be very highly adaptable. It took the other creatures weeks or even months to master their implants, yet this human did it in less than a day. She seems to have a intuitive understanding of how machines work, in order to master it so quickly. ]] A13-X gave her his assessment. 

He got the sense that Mother seemed to be smiling at this. 

[[Excellent.]] 

That was all she said before she “left”.


End file.
